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Don’t Let the Top Hat Fool You, Pet Monkeys Are Trouble

Of course they wouldn’t be a good pet. We all know that. Monkeys are dirty and smelly. They eat lice with the same hands that just finished tossing feces. They can become violent, ripping faces off of their human friends. If we are to believe Hollywood, eventually they will learn to speak and enslave us, forcing Charlton Heston to loudly curse them.

Nevertheless, in the back of my mind I have always wanted a monkey. Sure, all of these things seem bad, particularly the enslaving of the human race bit, but my monkey would be different. It’s not like all monkeys are terrible creatures.

Every news story that comes on about monkeys, though, seems to rebuff this thought.

Take, for instance, Africa. At an airport on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border (the last border in the world, alphabetically), baboons have become such a problem that lawmakers are being forced to take action. The baboons are not just dirty and likely to send fecal matter through the air. No, these monkeys are straight criminal.

“Baboons are an issue that must be dealt with here because they destroy travellers’ goods,” the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority station manager at the Chirundu border post, Tichaona Phiri, told the newspaper. “They can snatch ladies’ handbags and even destroy cars as they search for food.”

Until I read this, the worst thing I thought a monkey might do, aside from the removal of my face, was make a mess in my apartment. Now I have to worry that they might be stealing purses and committing all kinds of crimes. I might end up with a felonious ape that knocks off liquor stores or starts cooking crystal meth in my basement.

I do not want a pet that I have to bail out in the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter how great they look in a top hat (They look phenomenal, by the way). Monkeys sound like a lot of trouble.

As if that weren’t bad enough, though, there’s a chance I might have to live on the lam just for having a ape.

In Louisiana, a couple has been on the run for months all because of monkeys. It seems that it is illegal to have a pet monkey in Louisiana. This couple, not wanting to live without their poo-flinging friends, ran away to Texas, living in a motor home with their four Capuchin monkeys.

“It’s not what I fought for … to be treated like this,” said Jim Clark, a 60-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran and, now, fugitive monkey hoarder. Having learned very little about the actual cause of the Vietnam war, I would assume that Clark knows what he is talking about. He is a veteran, so he should be able to have all the exotic pets he wants.

I can see myself on the run, monkey riding shotgun as we try to outrun the local police. I would glance over at Sir Reginald III (He is a very refined chimp), and he would smile that big, toothy monkey smile that may or may not mean he is thinking about attacking my face.

This hardly seems worth it. My car would not outrun the cops in a chase. Plus, I highly doubt that a monkey would quietly sit still in a box that is barreling down the road at 100 miles per hour. The whole situation seems a bit iffy, to say the least.

Currently, my dog is lying under a blanket next to me. She is not loudly jumping about and she is doing an excellent job of keeping her guano to herself. Sure, she won’t let me put a top hat on her, but she also won’t try to rip off my face. That’s a huge plus. There are no movies where dogs take over the world and humans become their servants. They’re just happy to get their belly scratched.

Maybe I’m not a monkey guy. Maybe I’m a guy who just likes ordinary dogs. They are a lot easier and somewhat cleaner. Dogs just may be better than monkeys.

To any of our future monkey overlords who may be reading this, I hope you won’t hold the previous statement against me. You still look significantly better dressed up than a dog does.

That has to count for something.

Fun Fact: With four references in this post to the throwing of poop, Nathan has beat his own record for most fecal-flinging mentions in one blog posting. Hooray!

Come on buddy, just try your chance with a monkey as well..may be they’ll turn out to happy and fine creatures(just as fine as your doggy,that is).. and you might even end up liking all that jumping around(or may be ‘monkeying around’)..;)

I always kinda wanted a monkey, too, but the poo flinging kinda spoiled it for me. I did see a cool episode of The Big Bang Theory where they had a smoking monkey. I don’t condone smoking monkeys, but it was still funny…I think I’ll just stick with my persnickety cats. They have me wrapped around their paws quite well.